


Sweet Like You

by bigbidumbass



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Baking, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbidumbass/pseuds/bigbidumbass
Summary: Blakefield Winter Wonderland 2020: Day 9, Baking Cookies.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: Walking In A Blakefield Wonderland





	Sweet Like You

Will was not good at baking. Despite all his best efforts, every time he attempted to bake anything—no matter how easy the recipe promised to be—he’d end up with a fire alarm blaring in his ears, fanning smoke out of his kitchen with a towel and staring desperately at blackened cookies, nearly unrecognisable. 

Needless to say, he hardly ever attempted it nowadays. He stuck for store-bought pastries when he wanted them, and that seemed a proper solution. At least, until he met Tom. Tom was the opposite of him, seeming to craft up difficult desserts with ease. Will only ever watched him, knowing that the moment he tried to add in something he’d end up ruining it. 

Tom didn’t seem to believe him on that. Will almost wanted to show him pictures of his last failed attempt at chocolate chip cookies. Tom especially loved to bake around the holidays. It seemed to be a holiday tradition, baking and decorating cookies and giving them to all of his friends. 

When they’d first started dating, there had been many a time that Tom had tried to convince Will to come bake with him. And Will had no objections to that generally, but the thought of destroying Tom’s baking always kept him away. 

It was a year into their relationship, in early December, that Will came home from work to find Tom at it again, a bowl in his hand, flour on his face, and a recipe sitting on the counter.

“Hi!” Tom greeted him brightly, “How was work?” 

“It was good,” Will said. “How are the cookies going?”

“They’d be better if you joined me,” Tom said, fixing Will with his usual pleading look. 

Will chuckled, coming up behind him and planting a kiss on his shoulder. “I promise you that I would somehow muck it up,” he murmured, half-muffled by the fabric of Tom’s shirt.

“You always say that,” Tom said, “But you never prove it.”

Sighing, Will pulled away and stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll join you and you’ll see for yourself.”

“You have to promise to really try,” Tom said sternly, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his face. “No purposeful switching of salt to sugar.”

“I swear I’ll do my absolute best,” Will said, and Tom gave a satisfied nod.

“Luckily you have a great teacher,” Tom told him, and Will leaned in to give him a kiss.

Tom lingered for a moment, then pulled away to look at the recipe again. “I’ll give you the easy tasks. All you have to do is weigh out the ingredients and help mix them together. I’ll handle all the oven if you want, too.”

“I trust your expert opinion in any case,” Will said, and Tom grinned at him.

“Good. Now help me measure out the flour,” he said, handing it to Will.

Will carefully made sure the bowl on the scale was scored, then poured in the amount of flour that Tom had told him.

“Got it?” Tom asked, pressing up on his toes to check on Will. 

“I think so,” Will said, double-checking it.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tom confirmed. “See? It’s not so bad.”

“Well, it never seems bad when you first start off,” Will pointed out, “I always start off and think, ‘maybe it’ll be alright this time,’ and then, twenty minutes later, they’re somehow on fire.”

Tom gave a light laugh, nudging into Will. “There will be exactly zero fires while I’m with you in this kitchen,” he said confidently. “Now crack an egg into the bowl for me?”

Will’s hands were shaking. He hated cracking eggs. 

Tom noticed, because of course he did, and he gently placed a hand on Will’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he said softly, his tone soothing Will’s nerves, “You alright?”

“Fine,” Will said, “I just… don’t want to mess it up, that’s all.”

“The most you could do right now is get a bit of shell in there, and we can easily dig that up. No big deal, yeah?” Tom asked, concern filling his eyes. “Or, if you want, I can do it and I’ll have you measure out the other ingredients.”

Will stared down at the egg in his hand and let out a soft exhale.

“Will,” Tom continued, “You don’t have to do this. I won’t be disappointed or anything.”

“It’s okay,” Will assured him. “It’s just an egg.” His hand had stopped shaking so much, and he gave the egg a crack. Luckily, no shell fell into it, and he was quite pleased.

“Perfect. Now the sugar needs to be measured, baking powder as well,” Tom told him. 

Will followed the measurements that Tom told him, finding himself double-checking the measurements every time. He didn’t know why, but even though Tom had made it clear there was no pressure, Will really wanted to get this right. Gingerly, he brought over the sugar and baking powder and set it down next to Tom.

Tom grinned at him and gave him a kiss. “See? I told you it would be okay,” he said. “What’s with the nervousness?”

Will laughed a bit, pressing his forehead against Tom’s. “I’ve seriously almost caught my kitchen on fire before,” he said, and that made Tom laugh too. 

“Well, considering we do know someone who actually burned down their kitchen, I don’t think that’s too bad,” Tom told him. 

“And who do we know that burned their kitchen down?” Will asked, a bit alarmed. 

“Leslie,” Tom said. 

_Ah. Of course._

“So I’m better than Leslie, at least,” Will quipped, “What an accomplishment.”

Tom only smiled, focused on reading the recipe again. “Alright, come help me,” he instructed, pulling Will over to the bowl and handing him a spoon.

“I don’t know,” Will said, and Tom gave him a look.

“What are you going to do?” Tom asked. “Set it on fire while stirring it?”

“Good point,” Will admitted, carefully mixing the cookie batter together.

“Yes, just like that,” Tom confirmed. “You’re doing great.”

Will only nodded at the words of encouragement, trying to get the batter to look nice. Once it had smoothed out a bit, he handed it back to Tom, who set the bowl down and pulled out a baking sheet.

“Now we just need to scoop these out and then they’ll be good to go into the oven,” Tom said. 

“I can scoop them,” Will told him, and Tom handed him the cookie scoop. It seemed so much easier, so much calmer with him helping. Will had no idea why it was so different, maybe it was just that life was always a little better with Tom in it, but he was glad in any case that the cookies seemed to be turning out alright so far. 

“Have you ever messed up a recipe?” he asked Tom, curiosity piquing his interest.

“Oh, absolutely,” Tom said, “Loads.”

“Really?” Will asked. He’d assumed quite the opposite, really. Tom seemed to have a natural talent with these things.

“One hundred percent,” Tom answered. “I’ve had things come out overdone, or underdone… had a batch of cupcakes come out salty because I accidentally mixed up salt and sugar… had breads that just didn’t want to rise for me… had biscuits that were rock hard...”

He trailed off as he took the cookies from Will and placed them in the oven, setting a timer.

“You make it look so easy,” Will told him. “I’d never have guessed.”

“I think it’s hard for us when we don’t know where people started,” Tom told him. “You have nothing to compare it to but yourself, and that’s not fair. I mean, I just kept working at it until I started to get better. And I learned things, like rereading the recipe about fifty times, and double-checking my ingredients. It does get better.”

“So what you’re saying is there’s hope for me?” Will asked, giving Tom a weak smile. 

“ _You_ just made a batch of cookies,” Tom said. “So, yes. I have full faith I’ll make a great baker out of you.”

“Those cookies might still burn,” Will said, and Tom gave him a glare. 

“Don’t say that!” he said. “They’ll be beautiful. I’m willing it to happen.”

And Will counted the minutes away, anxiously waiting for the cookies to be pulled out. Even though he had no reason to, he still found himself worrying over the cookies, whether he’d made a mistake despite his best efforts.

But when Tom pulled the cookies from the oven, they looked and smelled heavenly.

“Told you,” Tom said, handing a lovely, warm cookie to Will, who instantly popped it into his mouth. 

It was delicious. It wasn’t burnt. Tom had been right.

“It’s good,” Will said, swallowing the rest of it down.

“I had full faith in you from the beginning,” Tom reminded him. “Anyone can learn to bake.”

“Even Leslie?” Will asked, and Tom rolled his eyes.

“Even Leslie,” Tom responded. “Probably.”

Will shook his head at the thought of that, but Tom only took a bite of a cookie and watched Will wander over to the recipe he’d been using. 

“Bake a cake with me?” Tom asked, and Will looked at him. “Not now, but… sometime. Only if you wanted to.”

Will grinned, walking over to him and pressing a kiss onto his forehead. “I’d like that,” he said.

And, as long as Tom was with him, he was confident he really would.


End file.
